Redeeming Death
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Sebastian, a.k.a Death, believes that the end of days is at hand. The other three Horsemen, including Kurt…not so much. Written for the Kurtoberfest prompts 'Apocalypse' and 'Death'. Dark humor. Kurtbastian Kurt H. Sebastian S.


_A/N:_ **Written for the Kurtoberfest prompt 'Apocalypse' and 'Death', but inspired entirely by my son's original AU about the lives of the modern day Horsemen, existing undercover in society.**

 **Warning for angst, loose interpretation of religious themes, and blink-and-you'll-miss-it horror related elements. Dark humor.**

 _Let it go! Let it go! Can't hold it back any more…_

Giggle.

"Press it again!"

 _Let it go! Let it go! Can't hold it back any more…_

Giggle, giggle.

"Again! Again!"

 _Let it go! Let it go! Can't hold it back any more…_

Concealed inside a fake bear head, Sebastian Smythe (human persona of Death, Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse) stands behind the Crayola red counter of Build-A-Bear Workshop, a cool purple heat burning his eyes. For the past fifteen minutes, he's watched a bubbly, sugar-infused seven-year-old girl, standing on line to get her Frozen Fever Queen Elsa bear stuffed, press the blue button that plays the ten-second sample of the song _Let It Go_ – which Sebastian has deemed the most vile song in the universe – over and over and over again.

Sebastian is free to glare behind the façade of his furry face, but he has to be careful how he directs the loathing surging through his frail human veins and corpuscles, or else he might unintentionally set this little girl on fire.

A late-arriving gaggle of the girl's party guests arrive and immediately join her in line, and Sebastian knows that this heinous torture is far from over.

Being the store manager of a Build-A-Bear Workshop is bad enough, but birthday parties are the worst, especially when the teenaged lackey who normally wears the Bearemy bear suit (Build-A-Bear's mascot that gets drug out for promotions and special occasions) calls in sick at the last minute and Sebastian has to take over.

At least this tiny sadist and her minions haven't started sing…

"Let it go! Let it go! Can't hold it back any more…"

Twelve squeaky, off-key voices breach the air, and Sebastian can smell the polyester insider the head he's wearing smoke.

"Holy fucking Christ," Sebastian mutters.

"Excuse me, sir?" his obnoxiously upbeat assistant manager asks, beaming at him through the smiling mouth of his costume head as if this is the greatest day of her life – just like every other day between today and the day that corporate hired her. What makes her constantly upbeat attitude even less palatable is the fact that Sebastian realized from day one that she has a crush on him…and he despises her for it. Every time she turns her pink bubblegum smile on him, he wants to shout, "No! No! No! No! No!" until the windows shatter and the concrete foundation of the building cracks.

 _Not yet_ , he tells himself, with a deep breath in and out. _Not yet_.

"Could you please go to the back and bring out another box of those silver sparkle heels? I have a feeling they're going to run out soon," he says, covering for his cursing even though he doesn't really need to. He could have told her anything, and she would have believed him. He just wants to be rid of her.

That perfume she bathes in, thinking that it's going to attract his attention, makes him want to vomit every second that he breathes.

"Righty-o, Mr. Smythe," she says with an infuriatingly flirty lilt in her voice. "I'll be right back." She sort of skips away. Sebastian watches her leave, imagining her being chased down and ripped limb from limb by a three-headed dog, maybe even a hydra. Or even better – a _dragon_. Then he starts imaging that same dragon laying waste to the party guests, the ones screaming and screeching and singing that Godforsaken song, and for the first time that day, he smiles.

 _Polyester fiberfill lights quickly,_ he assures himself. _This place would blaze up like a Roman candle in seconds._

Sebastian has lived much longer than the thirty-five years that he lets show on his face, and in that time – centuries upon centuries – he's seen it all, the depravity of the world rising to a frothy head, ready to overflow, but not in the blatantly blasphemous way it has unfurled in the last hundred years or so.

In the distant past, Sebastian has seen good men steal bread to provide food for their families, but these people today steal just because they can.

He's witnessed a history of people fall to the pride of their own valiant deeds, which ultimately became their downfall, but these people who walk the mall, with their Prada purses and their Rolex watches, out and about just to be seen, are proud of the money they have and the things they can buy, even if they don't necessarily need them.

He has seen the noblest of rulers get a taste for power, seen it taint them, developing a lust that eventually consumed them. But the people around him, even in this store, who should be enjoying the thrill of childhood innocence and glee, lust after the pettiest things – from people, to cars, to clothes, to the newest cell phones.

Ages ago, he'd have to travel the world to find a single person who embodied all of the deadly sins. In this day and age, he doesn't have to go much farther than the Westfield Mall.

It's obvious – to him at least – that the signs of the end are here. Walk outside this mall, this haven of avarice, and what will he find?

Prejudice.

Intolerance.

Gun violence.

Racism.

Poverty.

Over indulgence.

Bullying.

 _Let it go! Let it go! Can't hold it back any more…_

That song.

Sebastian's grin grows grotesquely on his face, hidden from view, skin turning black with the raw essence of Death. A single touch of his hand would steal the souls from those present, rendering them victims of righteous judgment…if not for the bear costume he's wearing.

This is it – the moment they've been waiting for. It has to be, and thank goodness. He can't wait to see it all burn, laid to waste beneath the blade of his sword, the tromping hoofs of his dark steed. He pulls his arms inside his bear suit, fishes his iPhone out of his pants pocket, and sends out a text to the only three people on his contact list (beside his district manager).

Conquest.

War.

And his personal favorite – Famine.

Oh yeah. Death is calling in the troops with a simple two word message that signals the end of this world.

To: Contact Group – The Horsemen

 _It's time._

* * *

Sebastian sits at a two-person table in the food court and watches as the after-hours janitorial staff empties the trash bins, the sound of their sneakers scuffing the tile beneath their feet, echoing throughout the completely empty mall.

It's 10:57. Almost eleven.

The mall has been officially closed for well over an hour.

There had been one other manager here, vacuuming in the Hallmark store, but he left half-an-hour ago.

The three gentlemen who had vowed to come to him at a moment's notice whenever he called are coming dangerously close to standing him up. He looks at his cell phone screen and grimaces.

"Sons of bi-"

It's then that he hears the _click click click_ of Ferragamo heels hitting the tile, and the smell of sweet vanilla and ginger fills the air.

"Well, hello, stranger," a sultry voice says in greeting. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?"

Sebastian smiles.

He came. Sebastian knew that out of all of them, _he_ would come.

"Hello, Kurt," Sebastian says, standing from his chair and turning around to meet his old friend. "Long time, no see." Sebastian holds out his hand, eager to feel Kurt's hand in his again.

"Too long," Kurt says. "Hello, Sebastian." Kurt slips his hand in Sebastian's grasp. Sebastian doesn't often compare anything to this – it's too painful for him to think about - but Kurt looks like an angel, and smells like a breath of heaven. But regardless of his outward appearance, how he chooses to dress, how he carries himself, there's power in his hands, a strength that goes beyond whatever it is he does to maintain his physical form. A single sweep of Kurt's eyes, a snap of his fingers, and everything around them would decay. Food would rot; animals would desiccate, still alive, their hearts beating the blood out of them until they ran dry; plants would wither and die, crumbling to dust.

To Sebastian, it's the biggest turn on.

"You summoned me?" Kurt says, slipping in to the chair opposite Sebastian's, taking a second first to wipe the seat down with his handkerchief, setting that handkerchief ablaze, then materializing another clean handkerchief to sit upon.

"Well, I summoned _all_ of you," Sebastian says, looking at his phone. "You're the first one here."

Kurt shifts in his seat, eyes darting uncomfortably away.

"So," Kurt says, "you really think it's time?"

Sebastian leans in when he speaks, keeping that glorious smell of ginger and vanilla in his nostrils.

"Don't you?"

"Well," Kurt says, "I have mixed opinions on the matter myself."

"I know," Sebastian says, slightly bitter about Kurt's _opinions_. "You've shut yourself away in an Ivory Tower since we've been exiled here, but I haven't. I've been here, Kurt. In the trenches, so to speak. Living among them. Working with them. You haven't seen the things that I've seen."

"Such as?" Kurt asks, a smile tugging up the corner of his mouth, amused by Sebastian's passion over nothing.

"The greed," Sebastian says. "The vanity. The sloth."

"I think you're forgetting that I live in France, my dear," Kurt says. "If you want to see greed and vanity, that's where you should be."

Kurt says it like an offer, but Sebastian doesn't seem to catch on.

"It wouldn't matter where we were, Kurt! In fact, I think you've just proven my point. It's everywhere! Don't you read the papers? Look up CNN on the Internet?"

"Heavens, no!" Kurt says with a throaty laugh. "It's too depressing!"

" _I_ do," Sebastian says. "Every day. And every day, things get worse. To be honest, I don't see why _He's_ let it go on for so long." Sebastian shifts his eyes subconsciously skyward, as if Kurt might not know to whom he's referring.

"It's called _free will,_ Sebastian," Kurt says condescendingly. "He gave it to everyone. Even us, remember?"

"But our _free will_ comes from a place of deciding when enough is enough, in His stead." Sebastian grins his manic grin from earlier, nodding at the thoughts of fire and brimstone brewing in his head as patches of skin on his face shift from flesh to black.

"It's time to pull out the swords…" he says, hands gripping the table.

"Sebastian…"

"Mount up the horses…"

"Seb…"

"And bring about an end to the putrescent and filth that has overwhelmed the world!" Outside, a thunder clap heralds the aftershocks of Sebastian's apocalyptic decree.

The janitors look around, murmuring to each other about whether or not it's supposed to rain.

Kurt re-crosses his legs and rolls his eyes.

Sebastian simmers down and glances back at the screen to his phone. "Where the hell are they? I mean, they should have been here by now. This is just…unacceptable!"

"Yeah," Kurt says, looking down at the ruby links in his cuffs to avoid Sebastian's burning gaze. "They texted me before I got here actually."

Sebastian's eyes snap to Kurt's face, their purple glow brighter in the dim, energy efficient lighting.

"And…" Sebastian says, losing patience.

"And," Kurt counters, not really wanting to be in the middle of this, not wanting to be the messenger of defiance to Death, of all people, "well, basically they said that they're…uh…not coming."

"Not coming!" Sebastian roars, the food court level shaking at the timbre of his voice, sending the janitors scurrying away in preparation for whatever unpredicted storm is coming. "What do you mean _not coming_!? Haven't you seen the signs? Haven't _they_ seen the signs? I can't be the only one! The time is nigh!"

"Yeah," Kurt says, still finding it difficult to look Sebastian in the eye when he's on a murderous rant like this, "but…what if it wasn't…you know…nigh?"

Sebastian stares at Kurt, appalled, and Kurt is tempted to laugh, but even though he's a Horseman, too, making fun of Death himself – that's just stupid no matter who you are.

"Come on, Sebastian," Kurt says. "We don't need to open the seals. These people are destroying themselves. Besides, we've got it good here."

"Yeah, maybe _you guys_ do," Sebastian argues. "Conquest just won another MMA title. War opened that Hot Springs corporate retreat in Utah."

"Yeah," Kurt laughs, shaking his head at the thought of Dave Karofsky, with his insane temper and thirst for battle, surrounded by bamboo sprigs in glasses of spring water and teaching classes in Feng Shui, "I'm lucky I got in on the ground floor with that one. Best investment I ever made."

Sebastian glares at Kurt, eyes violet with rage, and Kurt sobers up immediately.

"Sorry," he says. "Continue."

"And _you_ ," Sebastian says, gesturing at Kurt in his expensive McQueen suit and his highlighted hair. (Was that new? Sebastian doesn't know. He hasn't seen Kurt in…God, could it be _that_ long?) "Famine – running the most exclusive five-star restaurant in Paris! But look at me, Kurt! I'm Death! I'm the Fourth Horseman! The scourge of the Earth! Even without the three of you riding beside me, I would still reign supreme as the greatest terror in the minds of men, and I'm the manager of a fucking Build-A-Bear, for His sake!"

"You didn't _have_ to be the manager of a Build-A-Bear," Kurt says with a sarcastic quirk to his lips. "I mean, wasn't Hot-Dog-on-a-Stick hiring?"

"I'm serious, Kurt," Sebastian argues, slapping the table with the flat of his hand, making the floor beneath them quake. "Of all of us, I'm the only one who took our mission seriously. I'm the only one of you who laid in wait. I didn't search for glory for myself!"

"And why not?" Kurt asks. Sebastian opens his mouth to argue, but he can't. Kurt's right. The Almighty might have put them on Earth to wait for signs of the Apocalypse, but He didn't exactly instruct them on what they should be doing while they wait. Sebastian put himself in this position. At least he can admit it to himself. But he can't take Kurt's teasing eyes anymore. He turns away. "Look, Sebastian, what you've been doing is commendable, but you didn't have to abandon yourself to squalor in order to do it. Going about things this way was your choice. But be a big boy and own up to it. You can't just go destroying humanity and bringing about the plagues of Egypt just because you got stuck working minimum wage!" Sebastian tries to turns further in his cramped, unyielding seat, wedging his back painfully against the edge of the table in the process. Kurt sighs, putting a hand on Sebastian's shoulder. "You know, you might be here right now, Sebastian, but, this isn't where you were meant to end up."

Sebastian rolls his eyes and pulls away.

"I don't need your pity, Kurt."

Kurt looks at Sebastian – looks at Death – in his blue work polo and khaki pants, and in his head, he smirks.

 _You need something_ , he thinks.

"Sebastian," Kurt says, putting his hand back on Sebastian's shoulder where it had been shrugged off, massaging gently so Sebastian won't be tempted to slough him off again, "when's the last time you've been to Paris?"

"I don't know?" Sebastian shakes his head while he thinks. "The Black Plague, maybe?"

"Exactly," Kurt says. "It's been far too long. You've made being Death all about the end of days. And where has it gotten you, hmm? I'll tell you where – wearing a bear suit and dancing for a crowd of screaming kids, that's where."

Sebastian's cheeks pink at that. How the hell did he know? "Oh, so…you saw that, huh?"

"Yeah," Kurt says, biting back a laugh. "I did." Kurt gets up from his seat and steps in front of Sebastian, needing to see his face – even this weak _human_ face, which was so unlike his Horseman of Death at all. "We've been given this time on Earth to live among the humans, and when we started, we thought it was a prison sentence. But maybe living with the humans isn't about condemning them."

Sebastian locks eyes with Kurt, and the violet flame within them goes out. That was always Kurt's super power – being able to put the fire of rage that burned hot inside Sebastian, like an eternal pyre, out. "Then what is it about?" he asks.

"Maybe it's about understanding them," Kurt says. "He's given them so many chances. Maybe we're part of that. There's so much more for them to learn yet, Sebastian. And you, too."

Kurt puts a comforting hand on Sebastian's knee, and Sebastian takes it, running his thumb over the thin skin that hides Kurt's true form. Sebastian always thought Kurt's true form was gorgeous, a sight to behold, the thing of nightmares and glory. A flash of Kurt's magnificence can bring any one – human and angel alike – to their knees. But this…this is nice, too.

"So, what do you think I should do?"

"I think you should come with me," Kurt says. "Go to France. Work as a sous chef in my kitchen." Sebastian hisses at the thought of more work and Kurt laughs. "Or don't work in the kitchen. Go to the Louvre, walk along the Seine. Learn to paint. Forget about being Death for a while and learn what it's like to be _Sebastian_."

"And…you and me?" Sebastian asks. He hadn't intended to. This isn't about the two of them. It hadn't been for eons. But he can't help it. The worst thing about the decision he made was the amount of time he's spent away from Kurt.

"We can talk about you and me on the way," Kurt says with a wink.

Sebastian nods. That's a good enough answer for him.

"Okay," Sebastian says. "You're right. I don't need this. I don't need to be here. I'm going to be like you guys, find my niche, become disgustingly wealthy, and watch the world fall apart on its own, without me even having to lift a finger."

"There you go," Kurt says, giving Sebastian's knee a squeeze. "Let's go." Kurt stands, brushing off the seat of his pants. "I've got a limo waiting outside, and a private plane…"

"Great," Sebastian says, standing up and walking off with a purpose, "but there's something important I need to do first."

Sebastian walks to the escalator with a curious Kurt close behind. He travels down a floor, to where Build-A-Bear workshop is located – the first thing anyone sees when they get off the escalator, therefore generating tons of lookie-loo traffic during store hours, especially at _Christmas_.

Sebastian despises the mall at _Christmas_.

He peeks in through the window, behind the counter, where he left the Bearemy costume before locking up. He stares at it, remembering the last six years of his life – the screaming, the constant singing, the over-the-top laughing, the joking at his expense, the birthday parties he couldn't give a shit about, the bratty kids climbing all over him, the parents who thought that he would act as babysitter just because he worked there and was dressed like a giant walking stuffed animal.

He lets his abhorrence for consumerism, for materialism, for the blight on society that capitalism has become overwhelm him.

And Bearemy's smiling head bursts into flames.

"Sebastian!" Kurt gasps, only half-serious when he bats him on the arm.

"He deserves it," Sebastian says. He sheds his polo and leaves it on the floor outside. Then he takes Kurt's hand, sizzling beneath the surface with the need to destroy something, too, and walks toward the exit. "Now, let's get the hell out of here."


End file.
